


Room with a View

by jaicubed



Category: Youtubers
Genre: M/M, zeath - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 10:59:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12957759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaicubed/pseuds/jaicubed
Summary: After Andrea cheats on Zane, their engagement is broken off and Zane has to move out. He decides to live with Heath in his very tiny studio apartment, and Heath discovers that close quarters aren't great for trying to repress your crush on your best friend.





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Heath called out, rubbing his eyes. He stumbled to the front door, his eyes briefly flicking to the time glowing on the clock on the stove. 3:00am. Christ. Someone better be bleeding or unconscious.

He fumbled to unlock the door and threw it open, squinting at the harsh light from the hallway.

Heath became several thousand times more alert when he saw it was Zane- and that he looked  _awful_.

Zane’s hair was a mess, like he’d been running his hands through it for the past five hours. He’d shaved before he left for Florida, but now there was a mess of unkempt stubble on his chin. His clothes were wrinkled and there were lingering crumbs from whatever he’d eaten on the plane.

But the worst part? His eyes. There were dark bags under them, and they were blood-shot, like he’d been…crying?

“Jesus, Zane, what happened?” Heath ushered his best friend inside and turned on the lights, shutting and locking the door behind them. Zane had a backpack and a suitcase, and he dumped both by the front door before shuffling to the couch and collapsing, his head in his hands.

Heath had only seen Zane this upset a handful of times. A number of horrifying scenarios ran through his head, each more terrible than the next.

He sat down next to Zane on the couch and put a tentative hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry I came so late, I just…I just couldn’t…” Zane began, but Heath shushed him.

“Don’t worry about it. What’s going on? What happened? I thought you weren’t coming back until Thursday.” Heath squeezed Zane’s shoulder tighter and Zane dropped his hands, looking up at the ceiling before finally turning to Heath. His eyes were already filling with tears.

“My parents and I…we just weren’t…getting along, you know? I think three weeks is just…too long with them. And…and I couldn’t go to my dad’s, since they’re all in Lebanon… So I changed my flight so I could come home tonight. I didn’t tell anyone here. It was going…it was going to be a surprise…for…” Zane took a deep shuddering breath.

“Andrea?” Heath supplied. He wrapped his arm around Zane’s shoulder. Heath’s heart was beating fast. If something had happened to Andrea…and four months before the wedding, no less…

It took a few minutes before Zane could speak again. “I got into LAX at around one…and I got an Uber back to the house. All the lights were off…so I thought she was asleep, you know? So I went…I went upstairs to the bedroom and…”

Zane squeezed his eyes shut, and a tear escaped down his cheek. When he opened them again and looked at Heath, he looked…devastated. Broken.

“She…she was in bed…with Kian. They were…” Zane couldn’t continue, but he didn’t need to.

Heath pulled Zane closer and Zane dropped his head on Heath’s shoulder, his tears soaking Heath’s t-shirt. Heath rubbed Zane’s back soothingly, hatred for that stupid bitch and heartbreak for the person he cared about most in the world roiling in his gut.

“She…she wasn’t even sorry, Heath. She said that she…she never loved me,” Zane whispered eventually. With shaking hands, Zane dug in his pocket. He held out his hand in front of Heath, and in his palm was her engagement ring. The one that Zane had spent thousands on, that he had painstakingly selected after months of research. The one he had been so proud to see sparkling on that whore’s finger.

“Oh, Zane,” Heath sighed sadly. He took the ring and put it in his own pocket so it didn’t burn a hole in Zane’s. 

“Now…now I’m going to have to call everyone…and tell them the wedding’s off…” Zane was out of tears, but he stayed pressed against his Heath, his eyes staring emptily at a spot on the floor. 

“I’m so sorry,” Heath murmured. He had a lot more to say, but this wasn’t the time. Not when Zane was hurting this much.

They stayed on the couch for a long time, until Zane’s eyes started to droop from exhaustion.

Heath pulled him to his feet and led him towards the bed. Zane immediately crawled in under the covers, still in his clothes. “Get some sleep, Zane. We can talk more in the morning, alright?”

Heath turned. “Where are you going?” Zane mumbled, with barely enough energy to sit up.

“I’ll take the couch, it’s fine,” Heath assured him. Heath hated his stupid tiny studio apartment that only had one room, let alone a guest room, but that’s what you got when you had to pay rent by yourself in Los Angeles.

Zane shook his head. “No, here.” 

Heath wanted to point out that the bed and the couch were about five feet apart and Zane would be able to see him just fine, but he didn’t. “Okay.”

Heath turned off the lights and got into bed. Zane was on his back, already half way to Neverland. Heath rolled on to his side and watched Zane’s chest rise and fall, the rhythm lulling him to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

“So…any luck on finding a new place yet?” Erin asked, spearing a piece of lettuce with her fork.

Erin, Carly, and Zane were having lunch at an outdoor cafe in Santa Monica, where Erin and her husband had moved a couple of months ago. Erin kept her expression carefully blank as she waited for Zane to answer.

“Sort of,” Zane answered, his mouth full of hamburger. “We-”

“Please swallow first, Zane,” Erin chastised. “You’re thirty years old, for Christ’s sake.”

Zane rolled his eyes but did as he was told. He took a sip of his drink, and Erin gestured for him to continue.

“Heath and I have been talking about it. Instead of me moving out and finding my own place and leaving him in that shitty studio, I thought it would make more sense if Heath and I both moved out and got a new, bigger place together. There’s one we’ve been thinking about in Calabasas. I have a picture.”

Zane pulled out his phone, and Carly and Erin shared a look.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Carly asked, barely glancing at the photo on the phone as Zane held it up for them to see. 

Zane gave her a strange look. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t it be? Heath’s apartment is way too small for the two of us, and if we live together, Heath doesn’t have to worry so much about making rent every month.”

Erin sighed. “Look, Zane…I just don’t know if that’s really fair to Heath, you know? I mean, it’s been hard enough for him having you there the past six months in such close quarters…I’m not sure that-”

“He said that?” Zane asked, cutting her off. He looked at her with wide, hurt eyes. “He said it was hard having me there?”

“Well, not in so many words,” Carly answered, taking a bite of her breadstick.  

Zane sat back in his chair. He looked absolutely flabbergasted. “He hasn’t…he didn’t…I mean, it’s a small space, so that’s been kind of challenging, but I’ve cleaned up after myself and paid my share and everything. Why…why would he say that?”

“You try sharing a bed with the totally unattainable love of your life for six months and see how easy you think it is,” Erin said, exasperated.

“We don’t share a bed  _every_  night, I can’t believe he told you tha-” Zane argued before cutting himself off. “Wait…what?”

Carly and Erin looked at each other in disbelief before turning back to a very shocked Zane.

“I thought you were just really selfish, but you’re just oblivious, aren’t you?” Erin shook her head. “I probably shouldn’t be the one to tell you this, but Heath has feelings for you, Zane. Has had feelings for you for a long time. And it’s not healthy for him to spend all this time with you. I know you’re his best friend, but it’s killing him. I have no idea how you can’t see it.”

Carly nodded. “It was bad enough when he was having to deal with all of the engagement stuff. But it’s almost worse now, since you’re there all the time.”

Zane sat in silence for several moments. “I think you both are totally fucking delusional,” he finally said. He was pissed. “I know that Heath likes girls and guys, but that doesn’t mean that-”

“How do you think he realized he liked guys in the first place?” Carly shot back. “He didn’t just wake up one morning and decide that he was going to start being into a whole other gender. It was a long, shitty process that he couldn’t even tell you about because you were sort of the catalyst for it all.”

“It took him  _years_  to get himself sorted out,” Erin added. “And then, you moved in.”

Zane didn’t know why he was so angry, but he was. He was  _furious_. 

“You’re wrong,” Zane said lowly. “Heath is my best friend. Stop twisting it into something else.”

“Zane-”

“Just shut the fuck up,” Zane growled, standing up and pulling out his wallet. He threw some money onto the plate containing his half-eaten hamburger. “See you later.”

Carly and Erin watched him storm off to his car. “Boys are so stupid,” Carly observed, and Erin nodded and took a bite of her salad.


	3. Chapter 3

Heath let the water run over his head and down his back. He could barely fit in his shower, but at least the water pressure was good. 

It was rare that Heath got even five minutes to himself anymore. When he wasn’t sleeping or at work, Zane was up his ass (and not in the good way) wanting him to go somewhere or do something. 

But Zane was at lunch with Carly and Erin, and he was off today, and he could finally jerk off in peace.

It had been so long since he’d gotten a chance to do it that he didn’t even need a fantasy. Vague, fuzzy pictures of Zane and the hot guy he’d seen at the gym floated through his mind, but he didn’t focus on any one, the feeling of his hand enough to get him hard in seconds.

He leaned against the wall and pressed his head into his forearm, his mouth hanging open. Between the water pounding into his sore lower back and his hand stripping his dick, he was in nirvana. 

He jumped a foot when Zane knocked hard on the door. “I’m coming in! I’ve got to piss really bad.”

The door swung open, letting in a rush of cold air. Why hadn’t he locked the fucking door?

Heath wanted to cry. He stayed in the same position behind the curtain, hoping that Zane would leave quickly and he could finish.

Unfortunately, the universe hated him.

Zane flushed the toilet and the shower water turned scalding hot.

“Fuck!” Heath shrieked, and since the shower was too small for him to escape the spray, he had to step out. He tried to wrap the shower curtain around himself to hide his boner, but he slipped on the wet tile and the shower curtain ripped off the tension rod, sending it and Heath sprawling onto the ground.

Except there wasn’t really enough room to sprawl anywhere, so he really just fell forward into Zane, who was standing stock still by the sink in confusion.

“Goddammit, Zane! You can’t flush the toilet when someone’s in the shower!” Heath yelled, pounding on Zane’s chest with his fist. The shower curtain was the only barrier between his dick and Zane, and he was dangerously close to poking Zane right in the thigh.

“Oh, sorry,” Zane said sheepishly. 

“Get out!”

“But I have to wash my-”

“WASH THEM IN THE KITCHEN SINK, MORON!”

By the time Zane had gone and Heath had fixed the shower curtain, his hard-on was mostly gone and he was pissed off. He brought himself to a very unsatisfying orgasm out of pure necessity, nervous the whole time because he could hear Zane banging around outside like a bull in a china shop.

He wrapped a towel around his waist and stalked out of the bathroom.

“What are you doing here, anyway? Did you come all the way home just to piss?” Heath asked. He didn’t even bother to keep the irritation out of his voice.

“It was a quick lunch,” Zane replied cagily. When he didn’t elaborate, Heath threw up his hands in frustration.

“Did you use my deodorant?” Heath asked through gritted teeth a few minutes later. On the the roll were three very dark hairs that could not have possibly come from his pristine armpits.

“Oh…yeah,” Zane said, his head in the refrigerator. “Sorry. I’m out.”

By the time Heath had gotten dressed and had tripped over a pair of Zane’s shoes about a dozen times, and discovered that Zane had used one of his t-shirts to clean up some spilled Corona, he was ready to kill him.

“I’m going out,” Heath declared, shoving his phone and wallet in his pockets. 

“Oh, but…” Zane began. He looked down at the floor and wiped the orange juice off his mouth.

Heath grabbed his keys and slipped on his shoes. “But what, Zane?”

“I thought…we could go for a drive,” Zane mumbled.

“A drive where? It’s my day off and I have shit to do. Not everyone works one day a week making videos,” Heath replied. He knew he was being a bitch but he didn’t care. He loved this guy with all his heart but right now he wanted to stab him with a fork.

“I can drive you to the shit you have to do?” Zane tried. 

Zane looked so pathetic that Heath couldn’t say no. Even though he really, really wanted to.

“Fine,” Heath huffed. “But don’t talk to me.”

****

It was actually nice having a chauffeur. 

Zane drove him to the bank, and the post office, and the hardware store, and all of the other boring as fuck places adults went on their days off. Heath blasted the radio so Zane couldn’t talk to him, but that didn’t stop Zane from staring at him when he thought Heath wasn’t looking.

“What?” Heath finally snapped, and Zane jumped. They were at a red light and Zane had been looking at him like he was a science experiment.

Zane didn’t answer, but he was perceptive enough to know that it was absolutely necessary for him to buy both Heath’s Starbucks drink AND a cake pop at their next stop.

“Do you need to go anywhere else?” Zane asked an hour later. 

Even though Heath had gone to the gym that morning, he actually considered going again so he wouldn’t have to go home with Zane. He had cooled down a lot but he was still irritated, and Zane was still fucking staring at him.

Before Heath could answer, Zane spoke again. “If not, I was thinking we could drive up the coast. It’s only four, we still have plenty of daylight left.”

Heath wanted to say no. He really did. But Zane was wearing this sleeveless shirt with his biceps hanging out, and his stupid hat backwards and Ray-Bans on, and he was tan and young and beautiful. Heath hated summer.

“Fine.”


End file.
